16.12.05

Ionarts barfly Faithful Ionarts reader and commenter Garth Trinkl brought my attention to an article by Donald Lee (Nazi photo archive goes online, December 15) for The Art Newspaper. By my reckoning, this article is only two months behind my little capsule post (The Nazis and Art, October 13) about the new Web site of the Farbdiaarchiv zur Wand- und Deckenmalerei, which I read about in the German news at that time. I wonder what other Ionarts posts will end up in The Art Newspaper? Well, we can't cover everything here, but we do try to get you rare items before you read them in other places.

The only thing more de-jesting than being packed into a hamper of dirty linen and deposited in the Thames is being made to wait for weeks on end for the privilege of receiving an "invitation" to visit a certain Eastern European nation whose capital city begins with "M".

Apparently, contrary to what I read on the Web about visa requirements having been somewhat liberalized in response to the doing away of most visa requirements by a certain bordering country which recently experienced an "Orange Revolution", for the nation in question visitors must still present not only a confirmed hotel reservation, but also an "invitation" and a "voucher".

I was only afraid that "invitations" and "vouchers" would not be granted to American barflys. Thank you for your understanding. (And I'm sure that others won't have any problems when they apply to visit this country.)